The White Book of Ski Areas Selects Angry Gnome Media of Toronto and Envision Designs of Kansas City to Develop and Redesign WhiteBookSki.com

The White Book of Ski Areas has unveiled a completely redesigned website with a cutting edge look and more functionality for visitors and social media lovers. Last March, the decision was made to update the website. Through our warm network we learned about Angry Gnome Media and Envision Designs.

“Angry Gnome Media worked on the front end of the project. Their team of graphic designers began with a wireframe, followed by mood boards, a site map, a new logo, a color scheme and new, integrated social media capabilities. We’ll be able to post to Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube instantly and simultaneously. Our entire site is now in a Content Management System (CMS) which allows us to make instant, real-time changes to our blogs and to our database. It will greatly facilitate keeping everything current” said David Schissler, owner/publisher of the White Book of Ski Areas.

Once the components were constructed Envision Designs “stitched” it all together. “They advised us on the selection of a WordPress theme for our database while ensuring we have editorial, video, retail and other capabilities as well. Envision Designs also had the expertise to write custom PHP and SQL and then integrate it into WordPress to customize various aspects of the site” said David Schissler “A case in point is our SkiTube page. It has a clean look and functions like a YouTube page but was created independently.”

“There’s no telling what type of device people may be using to view your website. You have to look good on phones, tablets and computers. This is accomplished through what’s called “responsive design”. It generally begins assuming the visitor is on a phone and builds upward to tablets and desktops” said Christian Cadera, owner of Angry Gnome Media.

When building a website, you’re putting together a lot of complex things that need to satisfy the millions of viewers different requirements. In today’s world your website has to be responsive (adjusting to all sizes of devices), it also has to bring 3 things in order to be even moderately successful. It has to be aesthetically pleasing; it has to have subtext; and it has to convey the information in a short and simplistic way” said Jason Thompson, owner of Envision Designs. He went on to say “I would like to thank Angry Gnome Media for their initial work in the redesign such as the color scheme and logo. It was a big help in laying down the foundation of the site you see today.”

The new White Book home page features an absolutely killer video of skiers and boarders performing jaw- dropping stunts all over North America. The site now has individual pages for each area, first-hand videos shot by staff and contributors, and tours of selected resorts. We’ll also be taking full advantage of Google Maps and programming some custom features into how the maps are used including the actual GPS coordinates for each resort. Of course, visitors will still find commentary in the White Blog and Women in the Snow.